Huge Place On Friday Night

This review of Tootsie’s is for a visit on Friday Feb 23 from about 7:00 to 11:30 . I had been at the horse races at Gulfstream Park that afternoon and took a cab over to Tootsie’s. Afterwards I also took a cab back to my hotel and there were several cabs waiting at Tootsie’s at that time. When I arrived there was no cover and I just walked in. There was a separate entrance beside the main one for the VIP area which is upstairs at one end of the building. I just stayed on the main floor. Happy hour with half price drinks was until 8:00. A number of signs in the place said “No drugs, no prostitution, no solicitation, violators will be arrested”. There was a Miami Gardens police car parked outside.

This place is huge. To the left on the same wall as the entrance is a bar. To the right is the restrooms, with troll. Along the left side of the room is first what is called “Tootsie’s theatre”, a stage surrounded by a row of chairs and farther back several rows of tables. Next along the wall is “Tootsie’s Station”, a structure shaped like a trolley car fronted by a U-shaped bar. Farther along is what was was called “Vegas”, a circular stage with chairs around 3 sides of it and tables farther back and then a structure called“Tootsie’s Palace” vaguely modeled after Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Along the right wall were Champagne rooms and there were several small rooms for private parties with names like “Lions Den”, “Jungle Room” and “Cleopatra’s Barge”.

I didn’t see any groups using them however. There were a number of TV screens and a large projection TV on the far end wall called “Tootsie’s Drive In”. Through set of doors in the far end wall was a completely separate area called “Knockers Sports Bar and Grill” which had a bar, many tables and chairs, many TV screens showing sports, and 8 pool tables. There was no extra charge to enter this space.. It wasn’t operating when I first got there but opened up later. The whole place was very loud and hard to hold a conversation in. Smoking was allowed. The very high ceilings helped mitigate this but some people were smoking hookahs making big clouds of smoke.